Saturday, November 22, 2008

It seems unfair that I am posting about an amazing trip I'm beginning today, and posting about more cancer nonsense at the same time. But I guess this is life. As far as me, I am noticing every day a new microscopically small healthy behavior showing up without me even having to think of it. Today I noticed that I didn't back down on a comment I made. Not such a big deal in the big scheme but it meant a lot to me. So bit by bit I'm climbing out of the hole.

Please keep these peeps in your thoughts and prayers if you pray; they are all going through their own battles right now: One Tough Chic, Linda, David & Tara, Baldylocks, Becky, Bekah, Allison. All of these brave souls are in the blogroll to the right. They have all been inspirations to me and they at least deserve this small shout out. I'd appreciate you doing the same.

And, in case you haven't read, Eric lost his fight with melanoma. I know I am late posting this. I regret being so late to comment on it and it brings to mind other deaths I've known about, even recently, that I didn't post on. I guess I have been taking a new route of giving myself all the time I need to deal with things. When a friend of mine died a year ago because she never overcame the side effects of Interferon, I didn't post anything at all. I'd like to say it was to maintain her privacy but in reality I just didn't know what to say. I guess now I'd just like to say that it's no secret how hard any of this is. But we have been given the gift to not have to deal with any of it alone. Alone, however, I think, is how we find we have the strength to keep going.

Thanks for keeping these folks in your thoughts. Because I'm a teacher, I'm thinking of positive reinforcement for you. Perhaps if you do really well, I'll bring back pics from Paris!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

When I read back over my entries on this blog in the last 2 years, my first instinct is to judge myself for the ups and downs I have been through. I think to myself about all the times I thought I was on the right track when actually it was a minor lift in mood. I get so angry about being so naive when I was, in fact, so far away from any semblance of healthy.But I think the truth, and I hope that I'm not just being overly optimistic here, is that all of those minor lifts have led me to the bigger insights I have been working through this past couple of months. I hope that it's true that all that work I did then laid the groundwork for this tougher stuff I'm dealing with now.For the most part, things are better. I can see real, legitimate, healthy thoughts and behaviors beginning to creep into my daily life. I feel more positive than I have in a very, very long time. And this positivity feels so different than the things I felt and wrote about before. This positivity is from my core, not just a surface-level fix I've managed to maintain for a bit. I feel like I have CHANGED. The kind of change that only an earth-shattering event can do for you. And, unlike cancer, I hope that this change brings me peace with reality, rather than hatred of it. I am learning to come to terms with this: I am both weak and strong, independent and needy, beautiful and ugly, peaceful and angry, sad and happy. I am such a dichotomy, and for some reason I have not been able to forgive myself for that before now.

But the change has not come without a lot of pain. I still fight that regularly. Reality is so very painful sometimes. It is frightening how badly I can want and will myself to have something, and how often I can let myself be open to it happening, literally putting myself in the exact position I need to be in to receive it, and be denied time and time again. At some point I have to muster the self respect to let go and accept that this thing I want so badly may never come to me. And if that is so, I need to make the choice to either accept it and go on living the way I am now, or decide I deserve a better life, not always waiting for what I think I need.These are the kinds of changes I'm talking about. These are not just tricks to see the world in a better way this week, these are totally new eyes with which to see the world. They don't always feel like they fit or belong to me, but they are mine now, nonetheless, and I am learning to love them. Because they were waiting for me the whole time.

Imerman Angels

In Loving Memory of

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.- Henri Nouwen